Kingston crams 2TB of storage into single USB thumb drive

Solid state drive manufacturer Kingston is giving the cloud a run for its money with a new 2TB USB drive that will be capable of storing hours of 4K video.

The typical USB thumb drive has been the holder of documents and music files for over a decade now, and despite a rapidly increasing storage capacity, it has not been used for much else.

To change that, the hardware manufacturer Kingston has unveiled a new thumb drive at CES in Las Vegas that manages to pack in the storage capacity of multiple desktops in one.

The DataTraveler Ultimate Generation Terabyte drive is capable of storing up to 2TB of data on a single thumb drive, according to Computerworld. This comes three years after Kingston debuted its first 1TB thumb drive.

Using the USB 3.1 port – but not the increasingly popular USB-C type – the drive’s casing is reminiscent of something from the 1990s, with a zinc-alloy metal casing designed to improve its shock resistance.

In terms of size, the measurements of the case show it to be a little bulkier than a typical thumb drive, given its storage capacity, measuring 72mm by 27mm by 21mm.

The DataTraveler Ultimate Generation Terabyte drive. Image: Kingston

Under $1,000

Kingston said at the consumer event that the thumb drive is capable of storing up to 70 hours of 4K video and will be compatible across almost all operating systems including Windows, Mac OS, Linux and Chrome OS.

Luckily for those eager to get their hands on this amount of portable storage capacity, Kingston has said it will be launched next month, but hasn’t yet given a retail price.

However, a spokesperson for Kingston said to Computerworld that it will sell it for around 45c per gigabyte, putting it close to $900.

In a statement, Kingston’s Flash business manager, Jean Wong, said: “With the DataTraveler Ultimate GT, we empower users to increase their data storage mobility in a highly manageable form factor.

“This is a terrific follow-up to our 1TB drive released in 2013, and by doubling the capacity, users can store and carry even larger amounts of data easily.”